Konohagakure, 13th November 2009
After Naruto's death, Kaoru had been catatonic for weeks. She would stare into space for hours on end. She felt estrange to things around her. Out of touch with reality – with what had become her reality. She had no care for anything anymore. She had refused any meals the hospital staff brought her. To the point they had forced feed her. When she had started to vomit any food ingested, they had put her under intravenous injection.
She often had visitors. Mostly the Sandaime, Iruka-Sensei and Kakashi. Each time, the men had left the room feeling dejected and worried. She also had the visit of Shimura Danzo. That had been frightening and probably the closest thing to an emotion she had expressed in weeks.
She had stayed that way for what seemed forever, until her tenant pulled her out of her junk.
What a swift kick to the rear it had been.
And what a great shock it had been for everyone to found her hospital room devoid of the young girl. A shock, but certainly a welcome one.
She had starting upping her training, then. She could only focus on Taijutsu as Chakra training didn't start before the third year. They needed, had explained Iruka-Sensei, to be in shape both in body and in mind, for that. For starters, she had chased around Konoha in hope of finding Lee. Since he was the only one she knew was really good at Taijutsu and the only one who would agree to spare with her. He was himself still an Academy student and was a year above her. He had already decided he would succeed at being an accomplished Shinobi despite being unable to properly use chakra.
She had approached him one evening when he was training by himself and humbly requested he took her under his wing. Might Guy would have marveled at how youthful it was, she was sure.
He had heartily agreed and she had now a Sempai.
They would meet at least thrice a week. He would beat the crap out of her each time. He was that good. But she was improving. She had been the one who had given him the idea to use weights to improve his skills. And the one to subtly and casually tell how good he would be with the Suiken Fist.
They still needed to find a way for him to master it without actually drinking, though.
Life after her brother's death had drastically changed. Now people were actually being civil and nice to her. She would still get some heinous glare of course. But, as no one but a few realized she was now the "demon fox brat", they treated her normally. Well, the civilians at least. Talk about hypocrites.
Classes at the Academy had also improved. Well, her taijutsu classes had improved at least; as she did not really struggle in her other ones as they were mostly theoretical.
Speaking of, the first year had been really boring, since that year was actually used to teach them basic things: learn to read or write but also grammar, conjugation, arithmetic, geometry, biology, geology, history or geography; which she already knew. Mostly. And what little she had not already known, she had learned on her own.
The only difficulty she had, had been to learn hiragana as it was the writing used here and Kanji. She also had problems with currency here and the exchange rate Euro from Ryo. So, she had spent days around Konoha looking at prices, asking about salaries or things like that. It had been needed, since she had often had the feeling some merchants had tried to trick her.
But, all in all she had been terribly bored. On the plus side, it had enabled her to help Naruto; at least for that year. They had been on even ground, starting their second year.
So, it wasn't academically things had improved, it was socially. The others kid didn't shun her anymore, now. And while, she had not actually friends, she had acquired some acquaintances.
Truth was, it actually her who was shunning them out now. She couldn't help it. Or maybe she could. She just felt no need to make an effort with them. And, why should she anyway? In her opinion, they had only decided she was worth the effort because Naruto was dead and that mommy and daddy had said she was okay to hang out with now. If only they knew!
The truth was, Lee had been her first true and only friend for a long time.
But life was certainly better, now. And it had been thanks to her tenant. She still felt guilty about Naruto's death from time to time, of course. But she could now see what this life had to offer.
Well, if you didn't look to closely at the violence and death surrounding them, that is.
She was beginning her third year today, and she was exciting about it. This year, they were finally going to start chakra training. Finally.
She had previously borrowed some book, so she could get some understanding, prior to actual training. She had ended up somewhat confused as the book explained chakra should both be treated as something foreign and an integral part of oneself.
She had actually had the wrong assumption she would manage to sense her own chakra network with ease, figuring it would be like having a prosthetic leg and getting used to move with it. Chakra didn't exist in her old life, after all – only in movies and imagination.
But Iruka had said, now they had sufficiently trained their body and mind, they were ready. It baffled her. One thing she had figured – or thought she had figured, one would gather chakra by combining the physical and spiritual aspects of their body. Hence her problem with the entire concept of Chakra.
If she had to think about this rationally, she would say Chakra network was pretty much similar to electricity in the way it worked. It traveled around the body, through conduits linked by dimmer switches – Tenketsus. In order for it to work you needed to switch them on and off to produce chakra out of your body and depending on the way you turned it on you could get too much or not enough. It basically worked the same with light.
In a simplistic way, at least.
She also understood, to a point, the concept of Yin and Yang release. To create and give life.
So, theoretically, She was getting it, really.
She just had a problem understanding how that "work". How you pushed chakra out of your body.
Maybe she had such a problem with it because she was trying to rationalize it, as she had trouble believing in such a concept – As it had been but a myth before she had been reborn.
Nature against nurture, she guessed. So maybe she needed to believe. Yeah, easier said than done.
Still, she had naively hoped, her classes would have some sort of miraculous explanation and plausible that would help her do it.
So, she had listened Iruka's lecture with rapt attention, before they were to try exercising by sticking a leaf to their forehead.
She had done as he had explained – form the sheep hand-seal, and concentrated.
Then, she started puffing her cheeks and became red in the face, to the point everyone started looking worriedly at her. I must look constipated, she giggled, then huffed. This was ridiculous!
"Stop thinking so much Gaki. Just go with the flow." Her tenant told her during lunch break.
Kurama. Go with the flow hmm?
"You still see yourself as a foreigner, an immigrant who has not yet integrated herself to the way of her new home. That's your problem!"
It made sense, in a way. The most effective way to learn was through immersion, after all.. And there in lied the problem. She had distanced herself from others and kept to herself since Naruto's death. Even Lee, who was her closest and only friend, she kept at arm length.
"You used Chakra all the time without realizing it. You freed yourself of your rope when you were three years old and instinctively shunshined to attack that hag." he spat the last word.
That had been because of Naruto, of her desire to protect him from harm.
And Kurama was right. She had felt she was a part of this world through and thanks to him, that she belonged – To this world and to him. They were two sides of the same coin. He had been a part of her just as she had been a part of her – Twins, nurtured by the fact they were all each other had. He had been her entire world, had give her a purpose – Other than live. She did not have that anymore. Nothing that made her want to belong. She resented people for the way they had treated them, despised their hypocrisy.
But it was much more than that. The truth was, even a year later, she had not accepted his death yet.
She knew she needed to find a new purpose, to reach out. But, more than that, she needed to properly grieved and let her brother go.
This notion terrified her. It was excruciating and suffocating.
Searing pain took hold of her and brought her to her knees. With a cry, she curled up in a corner and cried.
She cried so much she thought she would never stop.
She cried through the day.
She cried as classes ended for the day. She cried while children played in the playground. She cried as the sun set. She cried as she felt someone picked her up in their arms. She cried as they moved and jumped from roof to roof.
And, when Lee put her in her bed and tucked her in; she was still crying.
Konohagakure, 27th December 2010
Fourth year started with both a bang and a scream. A really loud, deafening, high pitched scream.
It wasn't her fault, truly. Well, maybe a little. Alright a lot. But, that annoying little brat – Amy something, not that it mattered, though – had totally been asking for it.
Her face, when the makeshift bomb had exploded, had been priceless; and totally worth the entire month of detention from Iruka-Sensei.
Besides, it was totally the girl's fault for being that gullible. Seriously who accepted gifts from strangers?
A little note, -From an Admirer – which she had wrongly assumed was from Sasuke had been enough for the stupid girl to throw caution to the wind.
She supposed, though, as chemistry was almost non-existent in this world, it was understandable.
The bottle didn't have any chakra signature after all. No explosives tags put on it. And the ingredients used were, usually, commonly found in kitchen cupboard and harmless – Individually, at least.
Also, the result when put together were actually more loud than really destructive.
That still gave her an idea: what if she put senbon or nail inside?
Of course as the reaction took time; days even, and the explosion could happen at any random time, she needed to make the container unbreakable until she needed it. She needed to learn fuinjutsu, something that wasn't part of the curriculum until final year and was only studied in theory.
Which meant Kage Bunshin. That could be a problem though, as she couldn't maintain several clones – no more than three – for a long period of time. Nevertheless, that was unquestionably an awesome and useful jutsu: Praised be Tobirama-Sama. Moreover, she congratulated herself she had pestered Itachi to teach her until he had relented – That had took months!
Itachi. Thinking about him, of what was to come; broke her heart. He was so carefree. The only things he had on his mind for now was Sasuke, and training and Sasuke. Admittedly, there was nothing she could do about the massacre. She had mulled over telling him, warned him about Obito – Or as he believed, Madara – and Danzo. In the end, she was just too scare to. There was just too much questions. Would he believed her? What would be Danzo's reaction? Would Obito target her? Would that actually changed anything? And the truth was she doubted it. There were too many people plotting the Uchiha's demise and the Uchiha would always be at odds with Konoha.
She had, instead, chosen to befriend them, or try. Sasuke, tolerated her and, in a way acknowledged her, she assumed, but they never talk. They would just walk back home together, even though they lived in different part of the village. He would pretend otherwise and act like she was stalking him or something, each time they came across Itachi or Shisui. Probably, afraid they'd teased him, or something like that. Getting closer to Itachi was difficult, nearly impossible. For one thing he was five years older than she was and trying to be his friend may seemed kind of pathetic; little girl trying to act all grown up. And for another, well it was ironically for the same reason she wanted to befriend him, she was having difficulty.
And to him, she suspected, she was nothing more than his little brother's peculiar classmate, he had, one day, seen jump on the back of another of their classmate, and always looked starry-eyed at his closest friend each time he was in the vicinity.
About that, she couldn't help herself. She had had a fan-girlish crush on him for a very long time. Still, she didn't behaved as stupidly, as she had the first time, now. She was ashamed to admit she had literally squealed the first time she came face to face with him – Or face to stomach, because she was a nine years old midget. Talk about embarrassing. Both, he and Itachi probably had many a laugh at her expense over that; the two jackasses!
So, she figured he saw her as irrelevant. There were times, though, she swore she could feel him watch her – He and Shisui. Not in a "I know you are not to be trusted" kind of way. It was more of a "look underneath the underneath" type of look.
But whatever he suspected, if he suspected anything, he never said anything. So, she just hang out. But she never actually tried to reach out more than that.
Then, it happened!
Konohagakure 3rd February 2011
Strange as it may seemed, she had not been expecting it. Granted, she knew it would happened. Knew that each passing days brought her closer to it. Had in fact, gone as far as avoiding Sasuke outside the Academy, to make sure she wouldn't stumble upon anything she wasn't supposed to stumble upon. But the truth was, she had not been prepared.
The problem had been not knowing when exactly it was supposed to happened. The only information she had was Itachi and Sasuk's age – thirteen and nine. That meant any days between the 24th june 2010 and the 8th june 2011.
And knowing it will happened but not when had taken its toll on her. At first, at least. But as time passed by, she started being less careful.
The day had started like any other. After a quick shower and a healthy breakfast, she had sent her henge'd clone to the library so she could read any material available on fûinjutsu, created another to work on Chakra control which she let at her flat and gone herself to the Academy.
One would think she would used her bunshin to skip school, but she actually rarely do it, if ever.
Once she had a total control over them, that would be an entirely different matter, but as she was for now keeping it a secret, she thought it best to avoid bringing them at school.
Once at the Academy, she had greeted everyone and listened to Kiba teased her about her last stunt. Now that had been embarrassing.
They'd been working on the Shunshin jutsu for a week now, and Kaoru was still struggling with it. Even though she was beginning to get the hang of it – Practice makes perfect. But her first two attempts had been interesting, to say the least. The first time, she had not truly understood what exactly that jutsu was, had thought that it was some kind of teleportation thingy, except it was not. It was like being hurled at an impossible high velocity, and the scary thing was she had actually felt her body being launched by her small chakra boost. She had been sick. It had not been the justu in itself, more like the knowledge of what should normally have happened and to envision what such things normally did to the body. It was purely psychological, she knew; but she had ended bend over the sink and puked her lunch.
The second time, had been an accident, kind of. She had remembered seeing Lee accomplish something similar in the Chunin exams when Maito Guy had told him to remove his weights. She had theorized, then, that the combination of both – physical prowess combined with chakra boost – will allow her even more speed. And she had decided in her great wisdom to just try it at school.
So she had removed her weights – she needed to have them adjusted anyway – and gone to school. One thing she had forgotten though: she was not yet accustomed to move without them and had lost control of the jutsu. She had not stopped herself soon enough and face-planted in the wall.
There had been a stunned silence, before everyone, but Iruka-Sensei, had burst out laughing – Even Kurama, the traitor!
After classes ended, she had hanged around a bit with Shikamaru and Shino, shared some homemade churros – A shame chocolate didn't exist in this world – with Chouji and gone home.
She had practice her katas and meditated as usual, before putting in practice what she had learned from the Bunshin, until the sun set.
Then, she had changed into her camouflage gear, took her bow and gone hunting – illegally, kind of. Hunting were usually reserved for clans and the community as a whole. No one hunted for their own consumption. Genin teams were hired to take the game and reset the traps whence that was done. And while it was not strictly prohibited, it was frowned upon. Not that she cared, anyway.
There was something exhilarating and reinvigorating to hunt for your own game. She'd became quite adept at it over the years. Having had prior experience helped a lot. She never hunted anything other than rabbits, hares or partridges as the only other thing available was too big and protected by the Nara Clan.
Kaoru was about to head back after a fruitful hunt – She never stayed usually that late, but she had needed to vent her frustration – when she heard the commotion less than a mile northeasterly from her. Common sense should have her running away the other side. She knew it was a very stupid and dangerous idea, but in the end curiosity won over caution and she went to investigate.
She skidded to a halt as she saw Shisui and the six Roots Anbu in hot pursuit and realized her mistake.
Shit shit shit! She cursed as she assessed her options. Any of them had pretty high rate to end badly. With how close the group where from her hideout, there was no way she would not be notice whichever she chose.
It was astonishing they had not already.
Quickly reaching a decision, she shot three arrows in a row, killing the two Root's member from the left. The rest of the party halted as they sense for her position. Using that small window of opportunity; she created four Bunshin and had them running around them in circles, always staying out of sight. She then said with Ibiki's booming voice. "STOP IT'S OVER YOU'RE SURROUNDED"
As far as crazy and stupid go, she doubted anyone could best her. That bluff had no idea of actually working, was what she kept repeating herself, so when they looked around ensure, she almost missed her chance and barely caught Shisui before he lost consciousness from the poison fumes he had inhaled and fell down to the ground.
Had the situation not been so serious, she would probably had guffawed at how ridiculous it was for someone as small as her to carry a 5,90 feet tall nineteen years old guy. They reached or rather crashed on the ground. Kaoru only started to comprehend how much of a danger she was in. She had revealed herself to the young Uchiha – Who no doubt, will have questions – but to the Root members as well. To Danzo. She barely suppress a shudder.
Helping her infortunate partner to his feet she said the only thing that came to her mind.
"It's okay. Itachi's on his way."
That's when all hell broke loose and Susanoo exploded. Witnessing it up close was mesmerizing and breath taking. Susanoo wasn't just a giant armor. It was almost sentient, like an avatar. Eveything around them was destroyed, but Kaoru knew it wouldn't be enough. Shisui was injured and weak. Two Katon jutsu zipped pass them and killed the two masked shinobi still standing and she saw Itachi, Shisui's unconscious form over his shoulder. Finally.
They found themselves, barely ten minutes later, in that damn place; where the two friends had said there goodbyes.
Her eyes widened as she caught up what that meant. Fear. Shock. Sorrow. She didn't bother to stop the tears.
"You've decided." It wasn't a question so he didn't answer. Instead, he ruffled her hair and smiled sadly.
"A girl as cute as you shouldn't be crying. It's okay now!"
She shook her head.
"I can't watch this. I'm sorry… I can't."
She turned away, but Itachi moved to intercept her.
"Let her go, Itachi."
She fled. She run with all the strength she had left in her legs with one destination in mind: The Uchiha compound.
Update 27/02/2019: changed the years.